Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live web cam on the summit of near 13,800 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. This web cam is available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon shining down during the night at times. Plus, during the nights you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise and sunset too… depending upon weather conditions.

Aloha Paragraphs

A beach on Maui’s south shore

Our winds will be light from the south, southeast and
east-southeast…with muggy and voggy conditions
continuing into the weekend or beyond

Our weather will be generally quite dry, except for
localized afternoon showers over the interior
sections, and a few along the south and southeast
sides of the islands at times too…locally heavier
on Oahu and Kauai

We may see heavier showers arriving this weekend…
especially over Kauai and Oahu – with even a possible
thunderstorm Sunday into early next week

The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph), along with directions…as of Tuesday evening:

Our winds are coming out of the south, southeast and east-southeast, while remaining generally light through the rest of this week…into early next week. Here’s the latestweather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the North Pacific Ocean, along with a real-time wind profile of the central Pacific…focused on the Hawaiian Islands. ~~~ We see a low pressure system to our north, along with a late season cold front stalled a couple of hundred miles to the northwest of Kauai. We have a moderately strong high pressure system to our northeast…with a ridge extending southwest over the Kauai end of the chain. As a result of these weather features, our local winds will remain on the light side, from the south through east-southeast. The southeasterly breezes will bring voggy and humid weather our way, which will stick around through the remainder of this week at least. Satellite imageryshows large patches of low clouds over and around our island chain. Looking at this larger satellite image, we see the low cloud patches over the ocean, being drawn up into the islands in places. The daytime heating of the islands, coupled with the generally breezes are keeping most of the clouds over and around the mountain slopes. Meanwhile, we see the stalled cold front to the northwest of Kauai. Here’s alooping radar image, showing just generally light showers falling, most of which are falling over the ocean at the time of this writing. There have been a few heavier showers near Kauai and Oahu at times…with the Honolulu airport reporting heavy rain at 430pm late in the afternoon.

The primary reason for the unusual weather pattern we’re having is the presence of the late season cold front to our northwest…along with its parent low pressure system well north-northwest of our islands. This cold front won’t make it to our islands, although has pushed a high pressure ridge down over the the state now. This will keep our trade winds at bay for the most part, and keep our local wind flow from the south through east-southeast. These breezes will continue to usher in muggy and volcanically hazy skies over our state. We’ll find clear to partly cloudy mornings, giving way to mid-morning through early evening clouds developing over and around the interior sections. The air mass will remain quite dry and stable however, so that only spotty showers are expected in most of those upcountry areas. The exception will be the heavier showers that could fall locally over the western end of the state at times. If an upper level trough moves near the state this weekend, and its looking more and more likely, we could see some heavier showers popping-up near Kauai and Oahu, or even a thunderstorm Sunday into early next week.

The details being described above are highly unusual, as more typically we would have moderately strong trade winds blowing statewide this time of year, with a few passing showers falling along our windward coasts and slopes. The models are keeping the trade winds away for the most part until the middle of next week! Something may happen to change this absence of the trade winds, although I don’t see any signs of it at the moment. There’s a chance that we could see a day or two of light trades winds sneaking back into our area, during the Wednesday through Thursday time frame, although don’t count too heavily on this. I’ll be back again early Wednesday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise, I hope you have a great Tuesday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Here on Maui, at the 3,100 foot elevation, at my upper Kula, Maui weather tower, the air temperature was 55.8 degrees at 555amon this Tuesday morning. Skies were clear overhead, with some partly cloudy conditions around the edges. The winds are essentially calm, with light volcanic haze in the air too.

It’s early afternoon now at 110pm, under partly to mostly cloudy skies, with an air temperature of 75.9 degrees. The beaches down below, both on the north, south and west sides, look totally sunny in contrast to up here in Kula. Looking down towards the central valley, I can see light to almost moderately voggy skies. I had a dermatological appointment in Kihei this morning, and passed through Kahului on the way back upcountry. I found warm weather down there, and noticed that the Kahului airport was reporting a pretty hot 88 degrees…at the same time as I have that 75.9 degrees.

We’re into the early evening hours now at 520pm, under clear to partly cloudy skies, generally light breezes, and an air temperature of 78.4 degrees. It seems as if we might be seeing the temporary return of light trade winds here in Kula, as the afternoon clouds have been pushed away, and my wind chimes are singing out to me gently. This is the first sign of trade winds in a long time, and they may stick around for a couple of days. The volcanic haze seems to have thinned out in the process, which of course is a good thing too!

Interesting: Canyons in Greenland hold a lot more glacial ice than thought – Greenland is now mostly white. Snow and ice and glaciers abound, but are shrinking as the climate warms. Turns out that some of the glaciers are found in canyons and the canyons are deeper than previously thought. Scientists at NASA and the University of California, Irvine (UCI), have found that canyons under Greenland’s ocean-feeding glaciers are deeper and longer than previously thought, increasing the amount of Greenland’s estimated contribution to future sea level rise.

“The glaciers of Greenland are likely to retreat faster and farther inland than anticipated, and for much longer, according to this very different topography we have discovered,” said Mathieu Morlighem, a UCI associate project scientist who is lead author of the new research paper. The results were published Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Ice loss from Greenland has accelerated during the last few decades. However, older ice sheet models predicted the speedup would be temporary because the glaciers would soon melt back onto higher ground and stabilize. The models therefore projected Greenland’s contribution to global sea level rise would be limited.

Morlighem’s new topography shows southern Greenland’s ragged, crumbling coastline is scored by more than 100 canyons beneath glaciers that empty into the ocean. Many canyons are well below sea level as far as 60 miles inland. Higher ground, where glaciers could stabilize, is much farther from the coastline than previously thought. The finding calls into question the idea that the recent accelerated ice loss will be short-lived.

Buried under the Greenland Ice Sheet, the subcontinent’s bedrock topography has been estimated using soundings from ice-penetrating radar. However, the wet and fractured ice along the southern coastline cluttered the radar soundings so that large swaths of the bed remained invisible. To overcome that problem, Morlighem and his colleagues devised an advanced technique to create a more accurate map. The technique makes the best use of several kinds of data: ice thickness measurements derived from airborne radar; satellite radar interferometry data on the speed and direction of ice movement: and estimates of snowfall and surface melt to the sea. By combining the different types of data, they were able to map the bed topography along Greenland’s margins with unprecedented precision and detail.

Hi Glenn, David Hume asked why the Vikings called it Greenland and not Whiteland. Attached is a link: http://www.skepticalscience.com/greenland-used-to-be-green.htm that could be used for explanation. Greenland may have been greener 400,000 to 800,000 years ago, but it was an warm weather anamoly on for the North Atlantic. See the explanation. By the way I enjoy you site so much more than any I have seen.~~~Hi Mike, how great to hear that you enjoy my weather website so much…thanks for letting me know! I appreciate your sharing this link about Greenland as well, very interesting. Aloha, Glenn

Aloha Glenn, lots of rain here above Kailua Kona, has been for weeks! Reading the article above…I wonder why the Vikings called it GREENland not WHITEland? Could it be that not too long ago there was a whole lot less ice than there is today?~~~Hey David, good to hear from you again. That’s exactly right, today’s Greenland wasn’t always icy white…but rather more green and lush as you suggest. Trust you doing well, and it sounds like you are getting more rain than what Puna is getting lately…which is good. Take care my friend, Aloha, Glenn

It’s starting to look like a drought here in the Kapoho area of lower Puna on the Big Island. Hardly a drop has fallen in about 3 weeks now, and although I don’t have to cut the grass as often, it is a bit worrisome.
Do you have any long term indicators that suggest whether we will be getting and rain in the near or not-so-near future?

Mahalo,

Guy~~~Hi Guy, good to hear from you down there in the Puna District, although not such good news…as you describe your drought conditions. As for the future, and with an El Nino looming this summer into the fall, that’s not encouraging. Typically when we have an El Nino, and this one is expected to be a strong one, the Hawaiian Islands has seen increased drought conditions. At the same time, El Nino typically increases tropical cyclone activity in the central Pacific…and larger than normal waves on our north and west shores during the winter months. I can imagine this isn’t good news, although once the long absent trade winds return with time, that should finally be able to carry some showers your way…hopefully! Aloha, Glenn